Facing up to the twitters

Wikipedia describes the word 'twit' as a British slang word for an insignificant, foolish or annoying person.

Roald Dahl wrote a children's book called 'The Twits', which included the characters Mr and Mrs Twit who were two ugly, smelly, nasty, stupid people who spent their lives playing nasty tricks on each other.

Why, therefore, did the creators of the new phenomenon, Twitter, called it 'Twitter'. Surely not to describe its members from the extension of the word 'twit' or the book 'The Twits'. That wouldn't be very nice...

Twitter has its fans, but to be honest I can't see the appeal. I blog once a week and that's enough of my life which I want to share with the world. Or, more accurately, I'm not sure that the world is interested enough to want to know what I am getting upto every few minutes of every day. But, hey, I've been told that it is the best invention since sliced bread, so it must have something going for it.

Facebook, on the other hand, is a new find of mine which I am having fun with. Rather than tell everyone all about what I've been getting up to, I use it as a medium through which to see what everybody else has been getting up to. Perfect for someone as nosey as me!

I was drawn to Facebook after my triathlon training camp in Italy when many of the participants said they were 'on it' and that I 'must get registered'. So, back to Blighty, and I signed up. Since then, I have been keeping upto date with how my Italian training partners have been getting on with their races, and it's been very interesting indeed.

One of those is Martin, an excellent triathlete who was aiming to qualify, for the second year running, for the Half Ironman World Championships in Clearwater later this year. A week after returning from Italy, Martin raced his qualifier at Austria and promptly went and qualified at the first attempt. I met up with Martin on a boozy night out in London last Friday and congratulated him in person, which I have to say is a far better way than in cyberspace via Facebook.

Another is Andy who I learned this week, from Facebook, raced the Bedford Sprint (one of my favourite races) on Sunday in a very creditable time. Well done, Andy, and hopefully see you at the next race down at the Robinson pool.

I had a great training week last week:-

Monday – swim - club swim
Tuesday – swim - open water (Liquid Leisure), bike - hard hill session, run - hard intervals
Wednesday – run - hard hill session
Thursday – swim - open water (Liquid Leisure), bike - hard interval session, run - hard intervals
Friday – bike and run brick session with Robin from tri club
Saturday – complete rest
Sunday – run - hard intervals

This week I am planning on puffing my chest out at Adam's school sports day where I was on the victorious parents' Tug of War team last year. I might stay at the back of the team this year to avoid the prospect of injury, or maybe my male testosterone levels might just take over and force me to the front!

As far as training is concerned, this week I will continue to blast the bike and run, and concentrate on open water swimming at Liquid Leisure. More to come next week no doubt on Twitter, sorry I mean't to say Blog, or was that Facebook? So much to say, so many ways of saying it, but so little time. Who'd be interested, anyway?

Cheers.

C